OK, I feel kind of like this guy, lumbering out of Hades and asking the wrong person for "story time." But I have this thing on my mind.

(Not the SOPA thing, though yeah, take Danielle's advice and write your Congressmen. Heck, write other people's Congressmen.)I know one or two pretty good writers on my flist, and there are certainly some good fan artists online.

And I think, why do you tie yourself to fan works? You don't own it; you don't control it; you don't get any royalties, ever--is it just a cheap way to get attention? In fact, you put all these disclaimers on your work, because it's not even public domain--the trademarks belong to someone else. Is it worth it?

I hear bluefall's pretty upset about what DC did to Birds of Prey. But I remember reading some of her Harrierverse stuff and thinking it was pretty cool.

Why not, for example, file off the bits of the Harrierverse that identify it as made of DC trademarks, and publish it as your own thing? You could do it as a webcomic if you found a willing artist.

There are so many concepts that want love, and we know what they are:

That heroic vigilante/detective single father guy, the marksman.The slightly goofy couple who have fun chasing mysteries (maybe one of them has powers).The broken bird who sends her agents into dangerous situations while she uses her hacking skills to be as absurdly prepared as possible.The spooky young woman for whom violence is mother tongue, chasing justice and craving mercy.et cetera.

Waiting and whining for DC (or whomever) to do these is pretty much useless. They're not bringing back these things, nor things like them, and they don't care.

But if it's yours, you can do what you want, and DC can't pull it out from under you, nor "ruin" it by going in a different direction.

Heck, you could leave the trademarks in the public domain, or copyleft it, if that's your thing.

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The She-ra universe is ready-made, and other fans get it. It's about having fun, for me, and asking "why don't people make up their own language if they want to tell jokes" would be a similar kind of question.

I do get better every drawing I do, and explore, and I do make a little money off my art. But I'm careful not to overload myself, I draw because it's fun and when you start drawing on demand, to other peoples expectations, with deadlines you get burnt out. I think even that is something you can better at though, and each year I'm doing a little more.